Social Widget

Nine Stars and a Sergeant Major: Marine Corps Times’ Dan Lamothe travels to Quantico for a rather amazing interview in the wake of the Corps’ General Officer Symposium. Sample: Lt. Gen. John Toolan, the commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force, says, “Myself, General Wissler and others, we got our commanders together, and we said, ‘OK, post-[Operation Enduring Freedom], we need to get back to our expeditionary roots. We’ve lost a few things along the way. We need to get it back. How do we do that?’”

Adam Elkus suggests that the federal government shutdown, and the consequential loss of some services, offers an imperfect yet useful glimpse at cyberwar. (War on the Rocks)

Dept. of Lest We Forget: Daniel Klaidman revisits the men of “Black Hawk Down” to find out: what still haunts you? (Daily Beast)

Warlord’s Quote of the Day

“Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men’s conduct. Yet very frequently the “world images” that have been created by “ideas” have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interests.” — Max Weber

Contributed by Ryan Evans, a PhD candidate at the King’s College London War Studies Department, served on a Human Terrain Team in Afghanistan. From a list compiled by the Warlord Loop, a private email forum for national security experts.